Santiago Ramón y Cajal quotes

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist, renowned as one of the founders of modern neuroscience. His pioneering work revealed the structure of the nervous system and led to the neuron doctrine. He made lasting contributions by demonstrating that the nervous system is composed of individual cells. Here are 7 of his quotes:

The history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature' s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life' s machinery or of the world around us.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Now and then philosophers invade the field of biological sciences with these beguiling generalizations, which tend to be unproductive, purely verbal solutions lacking in substance. At best, they may prove useful when viewed simply as working hypotheses.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Knowing the conditions under which a phenomenon occurs allows us to reproduce or eliminate it at will, therefore allowing us to control and use it for the benefit of humanity. Foresight and action are the advantages we obtain from a deterministic view of phenomena.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Instead of elaborating on accepted principles, let us simply point out that for the last hundred years the natural sciences have abandoned completely the Aristotelian principles of intuition, inspiration, and dogmatism.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

The severe constraints imposed by determinism may appear to limit philosophy in a rather arbitrary way. However, there is no denying that in the natural sciences - and especially in biology - it is a very effective tool for avoiding the innate tendency to explain the universe as a whole in terms of general laws.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal